This is the case with a lot of cooking I do where I try to duplicate something I've had in a restaurant -- It's usually "OK", but is always missing some complexity in the flavor that makes the original so great.

Thanks for the update. I haven't been back down to KC since October, but am planning to head down that way for a family visit next month and will absolutely hit Pizza Shoppe to see if I can get some more insight into their process, and maybe talk to the manager about their crust. And, of course, eat some of that great pizza.

I wonder what is missing from the crust. Because I made the DKM version a while back and yeah, it just wasn't nearly the same; I tried some other versions and they were just bland compared to PS. What could they be putting in there to get that flavor? This is the case with a lot of cooking I do where I try to duplicate something I've had in a restaurant -- It's usually "OK", but is always missing some complexity in the flavor that makes the original so great.

Maybe my next visit down there will let me identify something in the crust flavor that will help duplicate the quality of this crust. Or hopefully someone else will read this thread and chime in with some insights.

P.S. My sister sent me a bottle of the Pizza Shoppe "Pink Stuff" salad dressing for Christmas; I'd love to have that on a salad with some of this pizza when we figure out the recipe to duplicate it...

P.P.S. What do the measurements of salt etc. work out to in tsp? My scale really isn't accurate enough to measure quarter-grams and I'm tempted to try playing with this recipe a bit this week.

Yeah, their pizza is great. It's different from any other pizza I've ever had, and I've tried quite a few! Their ingredients always taste delicious and super fresh, but the best part is the crust. Usually when a "thin crust" or "cracker crust" is offered, it's just a simple dough rolled thin. Here, they are doing something different, and you get this really crispy, light, tasty crust that is nice and sturdy to hold a fair amount of toppings, yet somehow almost delicate and brittle when you bite into it. It is definitely reminiscent of some type of really good premium saltine cracker, and it simply makes a great pizza crust.

Some time ago I had indicated that I would look into this formula and procedure, I haven't forgotten that promise, as I've been doing just that. My son lives within walking distance from the Olathe store so we were able to visit there several times over the Holidays. Here is my best effort to date:Flour: 100%Salt: 2.5%Sugar: 1%Olive oil: 1%Yeast:(IDY) 0.2%Water: 45% (variable)

Procedure:Put water (75F) in mixing bowl followed by the salt and sugar, then add the flour and the IDY. Mix until thoroughly whetted, add the oil and mix until the oil is just incorporated. (this dough is too stiff for my K5-A) cover the bowl and allow the dough to ferment for at least 4-hours, turn the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 2-minutes, lightly oil the bowl and put the dough back into the bowl to ferment for 1-hour, turn the dough out of the bowl and cut into desired size pieces (16-ounces) place into plastic bags and refrigerate for 24-hours, remove dough from the refrigerator and allow to warm at room temperature for 3-hours, turn the dough out of the bag and pin the dough out to approximately 1/8-inch thickness,dock the dough sheet and drape it over a lightly oiled cutter pan and roll over the top of the pan with a rolling pin to cut the dough into the pan, set aside for 20-minutes before dressing and baking. They bake in a deck oven at (as close as I can see) 500F. Their process closely follows one of the older dough making procedures used back in the 1950's except back then the dough was stored in a bulk contained and a piece of dough was grabbed and pulled off of the bulk piece, it was then taken to the sheeter where the dough was sheeted to thickness and then cut to size.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Some time ago I had indicated that I would look into this formula and procedure, I haven't forgotten that promise, as I've been doing just that. My son lives within walking distance from the Olathe store so we were able to visit there several times over the Holidays. Here is my best effort to date:Flour: 100%Salt: 2.5%Sugar: 1%Olive oil: 1%Yeast:(IDY) 0.2%Water: 45% (variable)

Procedure:Put water (75F) in mixing bowl followed by the salt and sugar, then add the flour and the IDY. Mix until thoroughly whetted, add the oil and mix until the oil is just incorporated. (this dough is too stiff for my K5-A) cover the bowl and allow the dough to ferment for at least 4-hours, turn the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 2-minutes, lightly oil the bowl and put the dough back into the bowl to ferment for 1-hour, turn the dough out of the bowl and cut into desired size pieces (16-ounces) place into plastic bags and refrigerate for 24-hours, remove dough from the refrigerator and allow to warm at room temperature for 3-hours, turn the dough out of the bag and pin the dough out to approximately 1/8-inch thickness,dock the dough sheet and drape it over a lightly oiled cutter pan and roll over the top of the pan with a rolling pin to cut the dough into the pan, set aside for 20-minutes before dressing and baking. They bake in a deck oven at (as close as I can see) 500F. Their process closely follows one of the older dough making procedures used back in the 1950's except back then the dough was stored in a bulk contained and a piece of dough was grabbed and pulled off of the bulk piece, it was then taken to the sheeter where the dough was sheeted to thickness and then cut to size.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Awesome, thanks Tom. I can't wait to try this out.

Now I just wish I had a dough sheeter!

Logged

"I looked at the serving size: two slices. Who the hell eats two slices? I eat pizza by the pie! Two pies is a serving size!!"

IE;I know the feeling. I one had one but I sold it to a new upstart pizza shop that was struggling to get up and running on its very limited funds. A workable solution is to use a "pie pin" these are better than a rolling pin to roll out stiff doughs. With a rolling pin you will most likely ruin it by bending the handles (called dog earing it) but with a pie pin you can put a lot more force onto the dough without damaging anything. A pie pin is nothing more than a wood rod about 18-inches long and a minimum of 2-inches in diameter. If you know anyone with a wood turning lathe you might be able to talk them into making you one in exchange for a pizza. Dirt simple: wood cylinder 16 to 18-inches long X 2 to 3-inches in diameter. After you make it, be sure to wipe it down periodically with a little white mineral oil. This will both seal the wood and keep it from splintering or warping.Note: I've tried to use just the barrel from a small wood rolling pin (with the rod and handles removed) but it was too short for ease of handling in my case, but if you've got an extra one in the drawer you might give it a try to see if it works better for you.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Pete;In the right hands the tapered rolling pins will work, but the tendency is to just attack the dough with the pin which results in getting an uneven thickness, whereas the straight pin (I like to round the ends over to help prevent snagging the dough) will automatically give you a flat dough surface with uniform thickness after very little practice.Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

This is probably somewhere on the site, but the only time I work with weight-based recipes is when I'm making pizza -- the rest of the time I kind of wing it or go with volume measurements.

I only end up making one pizza at a time, so I'm not using large weights of ingredients. I use a digital scale on the metric setting and weigh everything in grams to get what I figure is the best precision. BUT -- my problem always comes when I have to measure very small quantities of things like the yeast, or salt, and being off by a gram could make a big difference.

So, I have a 16-inch cutter pan -- could someone post the recipe amounts that would work for that size pan? I'm gonna run down and take a stab at it right now for tomorrow night anyway, and hope it works out. Thanks!

OK, I went ahead and got this made -- I ended up using my little el-cheapo Sunbeam digital scale because the more expensive Pelouze scale I have was not responding when I was trying to measure the salt and yeast. I made a 300g recipe and those small amounts of salt and yeast simply weren't getting the scale to respond. Switched to the other scale and it seemed to work much better.

I used a 50-50 mix of AP flour and Sir Lancelot flour since the recipe didn't specify what kind; had to add a couple tablespoons of water because it wasn't quite hydrating -- was very dry and shaggy -- After the two rests it formed a very nice ball of dough, pretty stiff as I expected. We'll see how this works out, it's now in the fridge and I can't wait to fire up the oven tomorrow. I'll heat the oven with the baking stone to 500F and let 'er rip.

To me the most interesting thing about this recipe (and where it differs from the previous ones I've used) is that it doesn't get parbaked -- it simply rests in the pan for 20 minutes. Tom, can you comment on this approach? I'm pretty sure they don't parbake the crust at Pizza Shoppe, so I like this aspect.

OK, gonna take another stab at this later this week. My suspicion is that I should have gone with straight AP flour, because the crust came out a little chewy rather than crackery, my guess is this is due to the Lancelot hi-gluten flour I used for half of the flour component. Not bad, but not what I was shooting for. I thought this might be the case when I made it, but what the heck. Also will probably not add as much water to keep the hydration level as low as possible.

The baking stone on the lowest rack at 500 degrees worked well; will stick with that next time.

You know what the great thing is about mistakes like this? They still taste great!

Whipped up a new batch of this crust today. This time, I mixed all the dry ingredients in the bowl of my food processor, then added all the wet ingredients (extra-carefully weighed), pulsed a few times, opened it up, scraped the sides of the bowl down, pulsed a few more times to thoroughly mix everything. Turned out the dough into a bowl (it was like damp sand), pressed it into a ball and covered it. Will do the remaining prep steps this afternoon and make the pizza tomorrow.

This time, I used 100% AP flour and because of the thorough food processor mixing, I didn't feel the need to add more water. I make pie crust in this way, and knew that the dough wouldn't form an actual ball in the processor, but it gets the moisture distributed throughout the mixture nicely.

Here are some recent Pizza Shoppe pics. It has been quite a long time since I have had it and it was great. The sauce and toppings are nothing special but the crust is unique and has amazing texture. It has a thin and crispy shell like a cracker crust but is much thicker and tender than a standard cracker crust with a rim filled with air pockets. This crust is so different than other cracker crusts, I wonder if there is any hope to produce something similar at home. I have read most of the laminated crust threads and am aware of the recipe and procedure posted earlier in this thread but was wondering if there were any new thoughts or ideas after seeing these pics. Things I am assuming/guessing (maybe incorrectly) are, low hydration dough, heavily laminated, docked with significant rise time in cutter pan. Even if it is never possible to produce this at home, I am still interested in how they are able to produce this unique crust in a commercial setting.

Things I am assuming/guessing (maybe incorrectly) are, low hydration dough, heavily laminated, docked with significant rise time in cutter pan. Even if it is never possible to produce this at home, I am still interested in how they are able to produce this unique crust in a commercial setting.

Thunderfan, here are some of my random thoughts; some of which have already been shared by others:

I doubt that this pizza spends "significant rise time in cutter pan." Cutter pan, yes, but if it does spend much time in the pan, it's kept cold until a couple minutes before it's baked. Which negates the "rise time" component of your statement. Because if you allow a laminated skin to rise or stay warm for very long after rolling/sheeting, it becomes something other than a laminated crust, as heat accelerates the fermentation and makes the layers merge together into a skin that in no way resembles most laminated crusts. Considering everything I can see, I'm inclined to think it spends very little time on the pan before baking.

Definitely baked in a pan, though; almost certainly a cutter pan. Since they use a pan, I'm willing to assume they sauce-and-cheese 50-100 skins shortly before each lunch rush and dinner rush.

Obviously docked.

I'm also inclined to think it may be a much softer dough than Shakey's or Tommy's; maybe a similar hydration as Round Table, with a lot of flour added between the layers just before the dough is folded and sheeted again. I say this first of all because it looks like a softer dough, in relation to most cracker style dough. But it's also pretty thick, which almost certainly would not work with a stiff dough. Tommy's thread, Reply #139: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=12446.msg204873#msg204873 shows what happens when you use a relatively soft dough without putting bench flour between the layers. Fourth pic here (Reply #200: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=12446.msg207098#msg207098) also shows what happens when you laminate a relatively soft dough without putting flour between the layers. (While looking at the last pic, I figured the dough for that pizza had a lot of yeast, but apparently I only used 0.60% ADY for that one.)

Probably a little bit of fat/oil. Like 2-3%; maybe less.

Probably some sugar in the dough.

I suspect this dough may be sheeted as thin as possible before it is folded and re-sheeted.

So as a recap, here are some things I think may be part of making this pizza:

About 50% hydration; possibly higher. (Not sure what type of flour.)

Maybe 2% oil/fat.

Bulk fermented, then sheeted shortly before baking.

TF=0.130-0.150???

10-15 layers.

Cutter pan.

Docked.

However, I MAY BE WRONG WITH SOME OF THIS STUFF!

To Bob and whoever else may know what I'm talking about: This pizza looks a lot like the pizza in that thread where, earlier this year, a member was asking for help in cloning a particular pizza joint somewhere in California but wouldn't reveal the name of the pizzeria or what city it's in or any other important things that might help us help her. Don't ya think? (I believe that thread began as a cheese-related question.)

By the way, I believe fazzari may have shared a pic late in that thread that looked more like this kind of pizza than any of the pics I've linked to in this post. I'm not sure what the thread is titled, but maybe someone else remembers.

To Bob and whoever else may know what I'm talking about: This pizza looks a lot like the pizza in that thread where, earlier this year, a member was asking for help in cloning a particular pizza joint somewhere in California but wouldn't reveal the name of the pizzeria or what city it's in or any other important things that might help us help her. Don't ya think? (I believe that thread began as a cheese-related question.)

By the way, I believe fazzari may have shared a pic late in that thread that looked more like this kind of pizza than any of the pics I've linked to in this post. I'm not sure what the thread is titled, but maybe someone else remembers.

Ryan, I also thought of the threads you mentioned and re read them for ideas. Use of the term "significant rise" might be too vague and incorrect. After looking at the bottom of the crust while eating, which you can kind of see in the pic showing the bottom of the crust, looks to me like the area around each dock mark had spent some time in the pan after being cut before baking. Also seen in the lighter areas around the dock mark. I have made many laminated crusts before but haven't tried to recreate this, so obviously my thoughts could be way off with this one.